Porcelain Tiles
by Kathryn0505
Summary: She was ready to get up and face the day.


A/N: I don't own anything, so don't sue. Also, I made all of Elizabeth's back-story up, so I'm sorry if something on the show contradicts it. Just go with it. I started thinking about what if there was more to Elizabeth than met the eye? Reviews are always appreciated. I hope it's not too bad. Enjoy.

Sitting on the porcelain tiles of her bathroom floor, knees up to her chest and head against the wall, Elizabeth was crying her eyes out. She very rarely cried; in fact, there was only one other time she could recall feeling this horrible. She had been twenty-three then, and her world had been falling apart.

She had been in college, and she should have been having a great time. But the past two years had been anything but fun and happy. She was at the darkest point in her life, and it was beginning to take its toll.

Her mother had been the first one to have a problem. Incessantly complaining of headaches, Elizabeth's sister Lily eventually dragged their mother into a doctor's office. It turned out that her mother had an inoperable tumor, and there was nothing they could do at that point but make her comfortable.

Elizabeth and Lily quickly grew apart; they could not agree over what to do about their dying mother. Elizabeth, not being able to take any more of her sister's constant bickering, drove back to school later that night.

Lily called later that night to tell her that their mother died two hours after she had left. This was her first regret.

Four months later, she found herself alone in a bar. Utterly miserable, broke, and drunk, she went home with the first guy who looked her in the eyes and whispered pretty words into her ear. She woke up in the morning to find him gone, and she went back to her apartment and never spoke about it to anyone.

She did not have many friends. She had always chosen quality over quantity, and on top of that she had recently moved and not met anyone new, except for the nice man who lived across the hall from her. He was a successful businessman, and a dealer on the side.

The next time Lily spoke to her was even worse; Dad was the next to die, but it was a motorcycle accident this time. Elizabeth thought it unfair and fitting at the same time that he should be killed by something that he loved so much. It was better that he died where he would have wanted: on the side of the road with his bike instead of with the daughters he had never made an effort to talk to.

From the depression, she failed her final exams.

This was when she got to know the nice businessman across the hall much, much better. Soon she had no money at all, having spent it all on drugs, but she got to the point at which she would do anything for just a little more forgetting. She got money from anywhere she could, and would do almost anything for more money so that she could get "the good stuff". Almost anything. She still had some dignity, and she therefore refused to sell her body.

But when she went a week without a fix, she got desperate, and that self-established line was broken. Afterward, she was able to have her fix, but she didn't think she'd every feel clean again.

She went on like this for seven months. She still remembers sitting on the porcelain tiles of her bathroom floor, sobbing, wondering how her life had gotten so out of control. She remembers opening the medicine cabinet and pouring out an entire bottle of aspirin into her hand. She also remembers that when the time came, she couldn't bring herself to swallow them.

She had always heard that addicts would not seek help on their own. They wouldn't get better on their own, people said, and this was a horrible thought, for she had no one to help her. Both of her parents were dead, and she and her sister were so angry at each other that she practically had no sister.

This was when her life suddenly came into perspective. Twenty-three years old, broke, drug addicted, and utterly pitiful with the pills still in her hand, she had been ready to quit living. This wasn't who she was. She was better than this. She wasn't going to let her life get so out of control, she was going to take her life back. She didn't need anyone to help her, she could do this herself, and she would, because she could no longer wake up every day and hate herself.

She looked down at the pills, tossed them into the toilet, and flushed them. In fact, she got rid of every pill she had in her apartment, and the drugs with them. She moved the following week; she knew she wouldn't make it with temptation just across the hall. Even though she looked like crap because of the withdrawals, she felt better than she had in a long while. She even called Lily, and they slowly began to rebuild their relationship.

The journey to get her life back together was a long process, and it didn't happen overnight. She had rough patches, and she had to just move on and keep going. She surprised herself when she became totally drug-free and passed the rest of her classes. It didn't matter that it had been hard, for she had made it anyway.

The key to getting her life back on track all started in her bathroom and with the decision that enough was enough. She would either succeed or die trying, and she succeeded.

Today was one of the most horrible days she had had in ten years. That's why she was sitting in her Lantean bathroom, crying.

But like that other day, she was ready to shine again. She couldn't sit there forever. People were relying on her, and as terrible as the day was, she couldn't let them down.

Taking a deep breath, she got up off of the floor. She walked out of her room, and, wiping away her tears, felt ready to face the rest of the day.


End file.
